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* ''Literature/TheSkylarkOfSpace'': Seaton advises Bay-Lay Boyn to enter the room "Slowly, if you don't want your brains to decorate the ceiling," since he's carrying a magnum pistol and knows very well how to use it. Bay-Lay's secretary, who was already fed up with him, encourages Seaton to go ahead; she'd love to see her boss' brains go everywhere.
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* ''Literature/TheStrangerTimes'': When one of the antagonist's stooges is being pumped for information, his [[ExplosiveLeash magical necklace]] makes his head burst before he can say anything useful.
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* In ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', students are outfitted with [[ExplosiveLeash explosive collars]] to enforce their compliance with the government's "game". One student dies when his collar goes off when he's stuck in a forbidden area.
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* In ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', students are outfitted with [[ExplosiveLeash explosive collars]] collars]], which go off if they try to escape the island or try to remove it, to enforce their compliance with the government's "game". One student dies when his collar goes off when while he's stuck in a forbidden area.
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* ''Literature/TheWitchofKnightcharm'': This is Janet Ghebremariam's fate after she tries to call someone to help her escape the evil WizardingSchool that she's stuck in. Unfortunately, the phones were trapped, and as soon as she pressed the 'call' button a curse spell fired and obliterates her head.
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* ''Literature/TheWitchofKnightcharm'': ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': This is Janet Ghebremariam's fate after she tries to call someone to help her escape the evil WizardingSchool that she's stuck in. Unfortunately, the phones were trapped, and as soon as she pressed the 'call' button a curse spell fired and obliterates her head.
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* ''Literature/TheWitchofKnightcharm'': This is Janet Ghebremariam's fate after she tries to call someone to help her escape the evil WizardingSchool that she's stuck in. Unfortunately, the phones were trapped, and as soon as she pressed the 'call' button a curse spell fired and obliterates her head.
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%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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[[YourHeadASplode Heads blowing up]] in {{Literature}}.
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!!By Author:
* Any time someone gets shot in the head in a Creator/MatthewReilly book, their head ''will'' explode. ''[[SignatureStyle Always]]''.
!!By Title:
* The big concert scene in ''Literature/AnnoDracula: Johnny Alucard'' features Spinal Tap, who were all on [[FantasticDrug Drac]] during their set, trying out the shape-shifting capabilities conferred by the drug; the drummer tried to generate horns on his head, but only succeeded in blowing his head apart. The stage manager laments that there is nothing but a big mess to clean up, while if he'd done it onstage it would have made a brilliant ending to their performance.
* In ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', students are outfitted with [[ExplosiveLeash explosive collars]] to enforce their compliance with the government's "game". One student dies when his collar goes off when he's stuck in a forbidden area.
* In his book ''Brain Droppings'', Creator/GeorgeCarlin wondered about the possibility of a world where the ''only'' cause of death was people's heads exploding, totally without warning.
-->'''Carlin:''' You know what? I bet people would get used to it.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', we learn of the existence of Tshlup-Ashlapeth, the Infernal Star goat with a Million young, whose preferred and only way of slaughtering a victim is to hold them down and show it pictures of its children until they can take no more and their brain explodes.
** Used metaphorically in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', when a dreaming Vimes sees a murder victim's head burst open and spill out words. Then again, non-metaphorically, when [[spoiler:the Golem King's head is smashed to pieces, with countless shreds of paper containing the king golem's Words flying out]].
** Used even less metaphorically in ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'', when [[spoiler:a werewolf reflexively catches Vimes' high-powered flare in his teeth]].
** According to ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'', an overdose of the [[FantasticDrug troll drug]] Crystal Slam can cause the victim's head to explode.
* In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature Human Nature]]'', one of the school children who is defending the school from a group of attacking aliens turns to say something to John Smith and gets hit in the back of the head with a dart from one of the alien's weapons. A moment passes then this trope splatters blood and brain matter all over the room, leading to a HeroicBSOD from John Smith.
* In the ''Literature/HyperionCantos'':
** Kassad makes a religious fundamentalist's head asplode ''on television,'' using careful timing and satellites with tightly focused invisible laser beams to boil their brains. He plays this up as the wrath of Allah, backed by the wrath of the galactic military police.
** The AIs make a human hacker's head asplode when he tries to penetrate their systems.
* In ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'', many Immortals during the course of the novel are often killed by head blows powerful enough to smash their heads to pieces, such as Lady Bixiao (head smashed by Yuanshi Tianzun's curved scepter), Sacred Mother Jinguang (head splattered by Guangchengzi's Heaven Turning Seal) and Luo Xuan (Li Jing drops an entire golden pagoda on his cranium).
* In ''Literature/{{Hammerjack}}'', pretty much everyone has communications implants in their brains. One of the deadliest hammerjack techniques involves hacking someone's implant and causing it to overload, making the victim's head explode. This is done by both Vortex and Heretic to dispatch enemy soldiers.
* A self-inflicted version in ''Literature/InfiniteJest'' where [[spoiler: James O. Incandenza drills a hole into a microwave, puts his head into it and]] well, the aftermath makes the Boston PD pathologist faint.
* ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'': Sun Wukong's cudgel weights nearly 6 tons and can wound gods: just touching the still staff makes one's body shake, it takes a slight blow to make a poor sop's cranium explode in a firework of skull fragments, blood and brain fragments.
* In ''Literature/{{Nightflyers}}'', [[spoiler:Thale's head explodes when Agatha injects him with esperon in an attempt to boost his psychic abilities.]]
* In ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror,'' after Daylen finds out [[EvilPlan what Jena and the other Dawnists are planning]], he hits her straight in the head with every ounce of his considerable SuperStrength. The results are ... messy, to say the least.
* Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant briefly mentions a colleague who 'ruptured' after receiving a DeathGlare from Baron Vengeous.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':
** A heartwarming DefusingTheTykebomb situation in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' is interrupted by this; the BigBad anticipated that it might happen, so installed a tiny bomb in his weapon's skull.
** Attempted in ''Literature/TheApproachingStorm''. Soergg the Hutt controls a pair of Ansionians by planting explosive charges in their necks. Barriss Offee manages to disarm and remove them, and the Ansionians pull a MookFaceTurn and become native guides to Offee and three other Jedi.
* The first time the protagonist uses the eponymous blade from the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, the powerful magic in the sword makes his enemy's head explode -- in slow motion, no less.
* Virtually any headshot scored in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novels results in this, given that the primary weapon of three different factions is a fully automatic miniature RPG. {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Literature/SpaceWolf: Grey Hunter'' when the Wolves specifically go for headshots against a sanctuary of Chaos cultists [[spoiler:because the cultists have runes painted on their heads that Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines are using to possess them and resurrect themselves]].
* The magic-wielding Asha'man from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series learn to do this as a standard attack. Later we see them exploding not just heads, but entire bodies, sometimes of whole ranks of soldiers at once. They are very good at their jobs. The meat-grinder carnage that results naturally makes other characters ill.
* Averted in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', where a military research proposal to remote-control thousands of bullet-sized cruise missiles into the skulls of zombies and detonate them never accomplished squat, except to use up a huge amount of funding and resources.
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%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
%%
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[[YourHeadASplode Heads blowing up]] in {{Literature}}.
----
!!By Author:
* Any time someone gets shot in the head in a Creator/MatthewReilly book, their head ''will'' explode. ''[[SignatureStyle Always]]''.
!!By Title:
* The big concert scene in ''Literature/AnnoDracula: Johnny Alucard'' features Spinal Tap, who were all on [[FantasticDrug Drac]] during their set, trying out the shape-shifting capabilities conferred by the drug; the drummer tried to generate horns on his head, but only succeeded in blowing his head apart. The stage manager laments that there is nothing but a big mess to clean up, while if he'd done it onstage it would have made a brilliant ending to their performance.
* In ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', students are outfitted with [[ExplosiveLeash explosive collars]] to enforce their compliance with the government's "game". One student dies when his collar goes off when he's stuck in a forbidden area.
* In his book ''Brain Droppings'', Creator/GeorgeCarlin wondered about the possibility of a world where the ''only'' cause of death was people's heads exploding, totally without warning.
-->'''Carlin:''' You know what? I bet people would get used to it.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', we learn of the existence of Tshlup-Ashlapeth, the Infernal Star goat with a Million young, whose preferred and only way of slaughtering a victim is to hold them down and show it pictures of its children until they can take no more and their brain explodes.
** Used metaphorically in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', when a dreaming Vimes sees a murder victim's head burst open and spill out words. Then again, non-metaphorically, when [[spoiler:the Golem King's head is smashed to pieces, with countless shreds of paper containing the king golem's Words flying out]].
** Used even less metaphorically in ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'', when [[spoiler:a werewolf reflexively catches Vimes' high-powered flare in his teeth]].
** According to ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'', an overdose of the [[FantasticDrug troll drug]] Crystal Slam can cause the victim's head to explode.
* In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature Human Nature]]'', one of the school children who is defending the school from a group of attacking aliens turns to say something to John Smith and gets hit in the back of the head with a dart from one of the alien's weapons. A moment passes then this trope splatters blood and brain matter all over the room, leading to a HeroicBSOD from John Smith.
* In the ''Literature/HyperionCantos'':
** Kassad makes a religious fundamentalist's head asplode ''on television,'' using careful timing and satellites with tightly focused invisible laser beams to boil their brains. He plays this up as the wrath of Allah, backed by the wrath of the galactic military police.
** The AIs make a human hacker's head asplode when he tries to penetrate their systems.
* In ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'', many Immortals during the course of the novel are often killed by head blows powerful enough to smash their heads to pieces, such as Lady Bixiao (head smashed by Yuanshi Tianzun's curved scepter), Sacred Mother Jinguang (head splattered by Guangchengzi's Heaven Turning Seal) and Luo Xuan (Li Jing drops an entire golden pagoda on his cranium).
* In ''Literature/{{Hammerjack}}'', pretty much everyone has communications implants in their brains. One of the deadliest hammerjack techniques involves hacking someone's implant and causing it to overload, making the victim's head explode. This is done by both Vortex and Heretic to dispatch enemy soldiers.
* A self-inflicted version in ''Literature/InfiniteJest'' where [[spoiler: James O. Incandenza drills a hole into a microwave, puts his head into it and]] well, the aftermath makes the Boston PD pathologist faint.
* ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'': Sun Wukong's cudgel weights nearly 6 tons and can wound gods: just touching the still staff makes one's body shake, it takes a slight blow to make a poor sop's cranium explode in a firework of skull fragments, blood and brain fragments.
* In ''Literature/{{Nightflyers}}'', [[spoiler:Thale's head explodes when Agatha injects him with esperon in an attempt to boost his psychic abilities.]]
* In ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror,'' after Daylen finds out [[EvilPlan what Jena and the other Dawnists are planning]], he hits her straight in the head with every ounce of his considerable SuperStrength. The results are ... messy, to say the least.
* Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant briefly mentions a colleague who 'ruptured' after receiving a DeathGlare from Baron Vengeous.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':
** A heartwarming DefusingTheTykebomb situation in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' is interrupted by this; the BigBad anticipated that it might happen, so installed a tiny bomb in his weapon's skull.
** Attempted in ''Literature/TheApproachingStorm''. Soergg the Hutt controls a pair of Ansionians by planting explosive charges in their necks. Barriss Offee manages to disarm and remove them, and the Ansionians pull a MookFaceTurn and become native guides to Offee and three other Jedi.
* The first time the protagonist uses the eponymous blade from the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, the powerful magic in the sword makes his enemy's head explode -- in slow motion, no less.
* Virtually any headshot scored in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novels results in this, given that the primary weapon of three different factions is a fully automatic miniature RPG. {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Literature/SpaceWolf: Grey Hunter'' when the Wolves specifically go for headshots against a sanctuary of Chaos cultists [[spoiler:because the cultists have runes painted on their heads that Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines are using to possess them and resurrect themselves]].
* The magic-wielding Asha'man from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series learn to do this as a standard attack. Later we see them exploding not just heads, but entire bodies, sometimes of whole ranks of soldiers at once. They are very good at their jobs. The meat-grinder carnage that results naturally makes other characters ill.
* Averted in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', where a military research proposal to remote-control thousands of bullet-sized cruise missiles into the skulls of zombies and detonate them never accomplished squat, except to use up a huge amount of funding and resources.
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